forever in the dark
by lannistersdebt
Summary: In the six years since the war, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy have set aside their differences...mostly. They're both haunted by the death of a particular witch, and it will never get any better for either one of them.


To some people, it seemed that Draco Malfoy had everything he could want in life: money, looks, a posh job and invitations to everything one could imagine. Most of all, he'd been pardoned from punishment after the war; he'd been given a second chance, a clean slate.

If only his conscience could be so clean.

He'd done things that would make anyone uncomfortable. From helping his aunt torture people to trying repeatedly to kill the headmaster of Hogwarts, he had proven he wasn't exactly an angel. Most days he wasn't extremely bothered by those things, as that wasn't how he operated.

The second of May, however, was not a day he could shove from his mind. A certain messy-haired rookie auror had the same problem and it had become a bit of a tradition for them to get together for drinks at the day's end.

"Draco! Sorry I'm late, got held up a bit at the Ministry. Incident with a drunk kept me out past the end of the shift, then I had to explain."

Harry Potter stepped out of the fireplace and into the study at Malfoy Manor, looking up in time to catch his host give him a hand gesture that, over the years, he'd learned meant he was to brush off his robes. When he'd failed to do this after his first visit, a house elf had done it for him - and none to kindly, either. He likely wasn't eager to repeat the experience.

"Not to worry, Potter." Despite the auror's insistence on using first names, Draco still preferred to use his surname. Six years may have mellowed them out a bit, but old habits are hard to break. "BIt humorous isn't it though? Being detained from drinking yourself to oblivion tonight by someone who's already had plenty?"

The blonde man shrugged from his jacket, draped it over the back of his chair and bent to pull something from the bottom drawer of his desk.

"I suppose. What's that you're getting? First drink of the night?" Harry's tone was hopeful.

Draco sighed. "I've got one for you in a moment. For the record, though, it's just the first for you. I've already have a couple."

Harry scowled, then, because the items were finally on the desk….and they were items that he was all too familiar with. Pensieves and Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder were items he only wanted to deal with when he was slurring his words and seeing so many figures that he couldn't tell which were real and which were fake. Presently, he was sober and therefore entirely not ready.

"We usually just talk about what happened, I know. But if there's anything you want to know, anything you don't believe me about... now's your chance. I don't know that I'll do this again, Potter, no matter how many times we convene on this horrid day." Draco pushed the pensieve further across the desk, toward Harry, and then wiped his hands on his trousers.

"I'm afraid all I have in here currently is whisky," he sighed as he moved toward a cabinet on the far wall. "And there's no ice, so if you'd like any, it's going to be neat."

"I'll take a bit." Harry's voice was suddenly rough.

"Thought you might… You never drink as well anywhere as you do here." Draco stopped talking as he pulled out two tumblers and a decanter, then poured them each a couple fingers. He took them back to the desk and handed Harry one before moving across the desk again to take a seat in his chair. "So… Decided yet?"

Harry nodded. "I want to see how she died."

Draco sighed. "I thought you might."

They were silent then, until they finished their drinks. Harry rested a hand on the package of the Peruvian powder. "Draco?"

The Slytherin had already put his wand to the shimmering pensieve, but he looked up. "Yes, Potter?"

"What's this for?"

"That," he said, as he motioned for Harry to enter his memories, "is for you to decide later."

* * *

He didn't join Harry. He already knew what he'd see.

The castle would be in ruins, stones crumbling every way one looked, and fires crackling in some places. A couple classrooms would be completely destroyed from duels, and the people in the paintings that were still intact would be screaming nearly as loudly as some of those who lived and breathed.

There would be tears and moans, shouts and groans.

None of them bothered him as much as Hermione's quiet breathes.

She had fallen in a duel, and had two arrows stuck in her right shoulder. He still didn't know how they'd gotten there (Had one of the centaurs aimed at the death eater fighting her and missed? Had a death eater snagged the arrows and plunged them into her on purpose, knowing she wouldn't be able to fight back as well without her dominant hand?) but in the grand scheme of things, he knew it didn't matter. He didn't have a time turner, and nothing he could do in the present could change the past. What he did know was that the moment he saw her, he forgot about saving himself.

Harry would see him go to her and brush the hair back out of her face. He would see him help her up, and then pull out the single package of instant darkness powder he had saved for months, previously unsure of when he would need it but thinking that the cover of darkness would help him move her to safety. Harry would hear everything that he said to her, even if she didn't understand it herself. She was so, so quiet...but she'd squeezed his hand gently. Harry would see that.

And then he would be blind.

He would hear, a few moments later, an all-too-cheerful voice yell out the killing curse and then the soft thud of Hermione's body hitting the ground.

He wouldn't see the way Draco froze. He wouldn't see him drop beside the brightest witch they'd ever known, desperate to find out that she'd just tried to avoid the spell.

He would hear him, hear his voice tremble as he said, "If selling my soul is all it takes to win, I'll give you my whole body, no holds barred."

He would hear his angry yell.

But Harry wouldn't see the way Draco held onto her hand so hard that his knuckles turned white. He wouldn't see the tears, streaking down Draco's face, leaving dramatic marks. He wouldn't see the pain, written all over him, from losing the first girl he had ever loved...losing the girl he had professed to hate. The girl he had spent so much time watching in the library, finding pieces of himself somehow as he watched her lose herself in the pages of a book.

But Harry couldn't see any of that.

He couldn't see anything.

He never would.

* * *

 _ **a/u;**_

 _Written for Finals Round 2 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.  
I write as Beater 1 for the Montrose Magpies.  
Round prompts were products from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.  
As Beater 1, my product was Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder._

 _Additional Prompts:_  
 _6 (quote); "If selling my soul is all it takes to win, I'll give you my whole body, no holds barred." - Yuri Plisetsky, Yuri on Ice  
11 (word); desk_


End file.
